On Drones, Prisons and Principles

President Obama has proven to be the biggest supporter of President Bush's War on Terror protocols and policies. So much so, that recently former VP Cheney asked for an apology. President Obama has no need to apologize. But Candidate Obama does. Too bad they are not the same person.

Candidate Obama had many names for the War on Terror: illegitimate, over reaction, shredding the constitution, illegal, etc etc. He blasted the policies of rendition, military tribunals, enhanced interrogation, predator drones, and the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. On his first day in office he signed an executive order to look into closing the prison within the year. And he would pull all troops out of Iraq and Afganistan immediately. Global War on Terror became Overseas Contingency Operations.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize based on his rhetoric. Or branding effort.

And here we are just a few short years (and several dozen rounds of golf) later, and we've escalated war in Afghanistan, continued Bush's time table in Iraq, carried out drone attacks (and one targeted assassination) in Pakistan, bombed Libya with additional troops on the ground, and now killed an American citizen in Yemen for his preaching. Guantanamo is still open and functioning and the military tribunals are ongoing. New Coke was not such a hit.

I wonder if Candidate Obama and President Obama have ever met.

3 years ago the interrogation of KSM was a war crime. Obama claimed he was due a civilian trial in Manhattan with full protection of the rights granted by the U.S. Constitution. By today Al-Awlaki can be blown to pieces in Yemen by a drone.

Confused yet?

So you can't put enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan in Guantanamo because of the Geneva Convention. But if you are an American citizens preaching anti-American rhetoric in Yemen... watch out!!

Candidate Obama's rhetoric of the "good" war and "Bush's" war or "war of choice"- phrases he preached in Berlin and Cairo... it's all so much more meaningless and so much more insulting now. It shows what little principle he has. And just how clueless he was as a candidate.

We are no more safe now than we were under the Bush Administration. But we are much less respected. Makes me wonder if that was the plan all along.